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I'm not sure about Hellboy or Punisher, I think they might take the route of LXG and be flops. However, I'm really worried about Van Helsing being a flop. That movie cost $135 million to produce, and that doesn't include marketing. From what I've read it doesn't sound too good and if it fails it'll be another nail in Universal's coffin. It just seems contrived and stupid. (a bit character from Bram Stoker's Dracula is some kinda MacGyver/Monster Hunter thing with Frankenstein's Monster as a buddy and the token Alias-like buff chick tagging along? ) For a movie to succeed it needs a human element, people need to be able to relate to the characters. The casting of a weak little boy as Spiderman was brilliant. X-Men has smartly done racial issues. LOTR has the various inter-character relationships (Frodo/Sam, Denethor and his sons). LOTR also has a wide arc of character development. You get to see the changes that Merry, Pippin, Faramir, and, to a lesserdegree, Theoden go through.

But I digress. There have been so many comic book movie flops lately that I am not at all confident about this next batch. LXG, Daredevil, The Hulk (I didn't think it was that bad, but lots of people did), Men in Black II, etc.

If Punisher is a return to an old style action movie sans special effects it might do alright -- it likely isn't highly budgeted. Hell Boy and Van Helsing though, not very confident.

Spiderman I'm sure will be good.

The summer movie I'm looking forward to is Troy. The trailer is very impressive and it has alot of good actors in it.

I thought Hulk was surprisingly good. That movie probably couldn't of been done any better. It is about a big green monster with a bad case of roid rage, after all. Actually, Ang Lee made sure that it was more about the humans involved than the green guy. That sort of goes to what Aspen said about the importance of the human quality being present in the film.

Also, did anyone notice that the director of Hulk and the guy who used to write the comics are both named Lee? Also, I heard the Hulk got struck by lightening 17 times during the filming.

I think the Punisher will do well if they stick to the style of the comics. A gritty action movie would be pretty . I have my misgivings about Spiderman 2 if only because it's a sequel (and we know what Hollywood likes to do to sequels ).

hmmm, never saw the Hulk, will have to rent it.
I did think the 2nd X-Men was better than the 1st. Infact I actually feel it's one of the all time great sci-Fi movies. However, I'm sceptical about the 3rd one. The thing is, you have to keep it original, you can't just do the same thing with different effects and think that's good enough.....we'll I'm sure an accountant would prove me wrong on that, but for me, you have to have a good script, that's original then be able to go from there.

Yes. Hollywood's problem is that they believe that a sequel cannot do well unless all original cast members are present. So they write them all into the movie, no matter what the cost.

Had they let Agent Smith die at the end of the Matrix and moved on to bigger and better things the last two Matrix movies would not have been so disappointing.

Some times you have to let characters go and move on.

I think that the main problem with Hollywood sequels is that while they're pouring a lot more money into its production than the original, they are not paying enough attention to the creative, original elements which made the original so great.

For instance, some sequels are bad because they are not written by the original screenwriter, and instead they're written in a very formulaic, economically rational manner by somebody who is under a lot of pressure.

Some sequels are bad because they are not directed by the same director, and instead they are given to a director who is skilled technically but is unable to breathe the creativity and originality into the script as the original director.

As you point out, sometimes decisions are made because of the star power alone. However, I believe this was not the case in the Matrix sequels. The Matrix sequels had very poor screenplays, with none of the originality that made the first one great. It's quite unusual in this case, because they had the same screenwriters/directors, but were still bad. One can only conclude that they just are not good at sequels, or they were too rushed, or were placed under too much pressure by the studios to adhere to a certain formula. I doubt that the story would have been much better had Agent Smith died; I feel that there are much deeper problems with the story.

I don't know about keeping things original though. James Bond movies follow a template and millions still find them entertaining.

With very few exceptions, all movies follow formulas. However, there needs to be enough originality and creativity in each separate film to make it successful. The James Bond series is very well written in that in both follows established formulas, but has enough 'interest' in it to sustain endless sequels. This is due in part to the screenwriters and screenplay adaptors who wrote the movies (and to Ian Fleming for the books).

By contrast, if we consider something like Austin Powers, the sequels to this did not live up to the original in terms of creativity and originality. They are not as good.